Page 9 of Code Name: Hunter (Club Opus Noir #2)

The blouse slides off my shoulders and down my arms. I pause, pulse racing, then reach for the side zipper of my skirt.

He hasn’t told me to, but something in his gaze dares me to go further—so I do.

I slide the skirt down my hips and let it fall in a whisper to the floor.

I stand in a black lace bra, matching panties, and four-inch heels. I don’t feel exposed.

I feel seen.

Logan walks behind me, his fingers brushing the nape of my neck. I shiver.

"Kneel."

The word lands like a match on dry paper, and I drop to my knees.

The carpet is thick beneath me. The candlelight dances on the walls.

I feel his presence behind me move, the whisper of rope, the creak of leather.

And then... a blindfold. Silk slides over my eyes, darkness falls, and the soft rasp of the silk knot tightening sounds impossibly loud in the hush.

"Hands behind your back."

I hesitate—but only for a breath. My pulse is thundering in my ears, but my face is calm, composed. I move slowly, deliberately, bringing my wrists behind me. I’m not trembling. Not showing fear. But inside? I’m vibrating with something raw and uncertain. Anticipation. Defiance. Maybe even longing.

He binds my wrists with smooth, practiced movements.

Not tight. Just... firm. I can move. But not far.

There’s purpose in every loop, every knot—a message in restraint.

Not to punish. To claim. To trust. It’s not fear that rises in my throat; it’s recognition.

This is a language I never learned to speak but always understood. And right now, I’m fluent in him.

Then comes the voice. "Breathe."

I do. One breath. Then another. Not because he commands it—but because if I don’t, I might shatter. The air is thick with candle wax and tension, and I drink it in like it’s the only thing tethering me to the now.

The music is faint, just a pulse beneath the floorboards.

My body vibrates with it. Or maybe with him.

Anticipation coils in my stomach, low and hot, like a promise I’m not ready to name.

Every hair on my skin stands at attention, tuned to his movements.

I can sense him circling. Watching. Calculating.

And I want him to move closer—want and dread it in equal measure.

Then he's behind me, breath at my ear. "You’re afraid."

"Of you?" I shoot back, aiming for sarcasm, letting it drip from my voice like poisoned honey. It’s a bluff, a shield—I need him to think I’m amused, not unraveling under his touch.

"Of what it means to give in." His voice is soft but edged in steel, cutting through my sarcasm like a blade. "To stop performing. To stop calculating. To surrender not just your body, but your truth. To give me the part of you that you’ve let no one touch—and trust I won’t break it."

My throat tightens, a silent betrayal of the storm behind my ribs.

I shift my knees against the plush carpet, grounding myself in the texture before my mind can spiral.

I want to scoff, to roll my eyes and deliver some cutting remark that puts distance between us, but the words lodge behind the lump forming in my throat.

The weight of what he’s saying presses in, intimate and terrifying—because part of me believes him.

Wants to believe him. And that part? It’s louder than I ever expected.

His hands glide over my arms, my shoulders, my ribs—fingertips dragging just enough to leave goosebumps in their wake.

He traces the slope of my collarbone, skimming the edges of my bra, then follows the curve of my sides, his touch possessive but never rushed.

Every pass is deliberate, claiming. He rests his palms on my waist, holding me there, grounding me. My breath hitches.

"You don’t get to lie here," he murmurs, voice brushing the shell of my ear. "Not to me."

Something fractures deep inside me. A dam, a wall, a lifetime of defiance—cracked wide open beneath the weight of his certainty.

I don’t know what possesses me, what ancient part of my soul rises in that moment, but I lower my head and offer him what I’ve never surrendered before.

Submission. Not out of fear. Not out of defeat.

But out of choice. It’s not the absence of power.

It’s the redistribution of it. In here, on my knees, I am no less dangerous.

But I am finally allowed to rest—in the eye of a storm I’ve spent my life outrunning.

Out of trust. Out of a yearning to finally be seen and still held steady.

Especially by him. The man who has always stood on the edge of my ruin.

And somehow, it’s the most liberating thing I’ve ever done.

He kisses my shoulder—slow and firm—then drags his fingers up the column of my spine, his other hand fisting gently in my hair.

In one practiced motion, he pulls it back, exposing the vulnerable line of my throat.

My lips part in a gasp, but the sound dies when his mouth crashes into mine—hungry, hot, demanding.

At the same time, something cold grazes the swell of my breast—a flick of steel—and then I hear the faint snick as my bra gives way, the fabric slipping from my skin like a secret revealed, my heavy breasts suddenly falling loose.

I don’t cry out. I don’t retreat. I arch into it, my pulse hammering.

Every part of me burns with anticipation, with surrender, with need.

He pulls me up off my knees in one fluid motion, muscles taut with command, and tosses me effortlessly onto the velvet couch.

I land with a soft gasp; the impact muted by cushions and adrenaline.

In a single practiced flick of his blade, my panties fall away, a whisper of lace severed cleanly, forgotten on the floor.

His mouth captures my nipple, warm and insistent, while one hand slides down—fingers gliding through the slick heat between my thighs. He groans against my skin, the sound low and primal. "You're soaked," he murmurs, lips brushing my breast. "That pleases me greatly."

The words roll over me like a decree, sparking fire low in my belly. Every touch, every breath, builds inside me like pressure behind a dam, threatening to break. And part of me wants it to.

His thumb finds my clit and circles it with maddening precision, sending sparks of heat pulsing through my body. His fingers thrust inside me, curling just enough to strike that perfect place deep within. I arch against his hand, pleasure building to an unbearable crescendo.

"Don’t you dare come until I say," he growls against my breast, then bites down gently on my nipple—hard enough to send a jolt through me, toeing the edge between pleasure and pain.

I whimper, caught between craving the release and needing to obey.

My breath comes in shallow gasps as I struggle to hold back, muscles trembling from the effort.

"Please," I whisper, barely able to speak through the rush of sensation. "Please, Logan—let me...”

His voice is steel. "Not yet. There are rules. And you’re going to repeat them."

I moan in frustration, hips twitching beneath his grip. His fingers never stop moving, coaxing, demanding, until I feel like I’m going to come undone just from the tension alone.

"You belong to me," he says, lips brushing my ear. "Say it."

"I belong to you," I breathe, the words dragging something deeper from inside me.

"And you’ll submit to no one else," he says, voice like velvet steel. The words strike me harder than I expect. Submit. The word lodges in my chest like a hot coal. I hesitate—just for a breath. Submission isn’t in my blood.

It never has been. I've built entire identities on control, on giving no one that kind of power.

But something in the way he says it… not as a demand, but as a vow—something in the way he holds me steady while the world trembles around us—makes the word feel different.

Not like giving up. Like giving in. And I don't know what to do with that.

I don't have the tools to unpack it right now, not when I'm breathless, blind, and bound, held open and trembling on the edge of ecstasy.

But I know this much: it feels right. And that's terrifying.

Still, I nod. Because I mean it. Because whatever this is, it’s real. Even if I don’t understand it yet.

"I submit to no one else but you, Hunter," I echo, heart pounding, thighs quaking. But there’s a beat of hesitation when I say the word submit—a flicker of defiance that rises on instinct. I’ve spent a lifetime building walls, staying untouchable.

Submission was never in the blueprint. But as the word leaves my mouth, something settles inside me with startling ease. It feels right.

Only then does he say, "Now."

At the exact moment the command leaves his lips, I feel him slide inside me—deep, thick, and claiming.

I gasp—blinded, bound, and completely taken—realizing in that instant he’s undressed without a sound.

But none of it matters, not when I’m spiraling through my climax, body shaking with the force of it.

Another wave crashes immediately behind it, raw and unrelenting, and I cry out as it overtakes me. My limbs lock, my vision white behind the blindfold, and my breath is lost to the rush.

He grunts, sharp and primal, and then he’s pulling out, coming onto my stomach in a warm burst, my name a sacred whisper on his lips.

The scene unfolds in a slow, exquisite rhythm of command and surrender. He doesn’t fuck me. He owns me—with touch, with voice, with silence. He pushes me to the edge, then catches me. My body sings for him. My mind quiets. And in that stillness, I find something I’ve never felt before.

Safety.

When he's done cleaning me up, he removes the blindfold. The absolute stillness in his body radiates a grip on the room so complete it feels structural. He doesn’t immediately untie me.

He lingers. His thumb brushes the raw line the rope leaves on my wrist—and for a heartbeat, I think I see regret.

Or maybe reverence. His hands are careful, almost reverent, as he loosens the knots.

The rope falls away, and I feel the sudden weightlessness of freedom—and something else, something far heavier: the echo of everything that just passed between us.

My wrists are marked, not bruised, but etched with something I can’t see, only feel.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. In that silence, there’s understanding.

Command delivered. Power shifted. Trust traded like currency.

And somewhere deep inside, I realize—I didn’t just submit to him.

I gave him something I’ve never handed anyone before.

I go to dress in silence, my fingers trembling slightly—only to pause. My clothes lie discarded nearby, wrinkled and bearing the evidence of surrender. I consider putting them back on, reclaiming that thin armor, but something inside me resists.

My bare feet sink into the carpet with each step, the fibers warm from the heat of the scene we just left behind.

I cross to the door where his shirt hangs casually from a hook.

It’s soft and worn. I slip it on, and it swallows me whole—draping over my thighs, the sleeves too long, the collar brushing my neck like a secret.

The scent clings to me: cedar and sin, heat and memory.

It’s not just comfort. It’s a claim. It’s proof I walked willingly into the fire. .. and survived.

I pause with my hand on the doorknob, fingers tightening around the cool metal as his voice settles behind me like a tether I hadn’t realized I needed. He doesn’t ask me to stay—not with words, at least—but his presence hums against my spine, charged and unspoken.

“Someone will escort you back to your place,” Logan says from behind me, his voice smooth, composed, resolute. “You’ll collect your things—and the dossier.”

I glance over my shoulder, catching the impenetrable look in his eyes. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” he replies. “Then you return. To me.”

My grip tightens on the doorknob, a thousand objections rising and falling unspoken.

“No questions,” he adds, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “You knew the moment you walked in here that this was never going to be on your terms, Vivian.”

There’s no threat in his voice. Just finality. Certainty. And something else too—that steady pull I can’t name but already obey.

It’s not a suggestion. It’s a command cloaked in calm.

And somehow, that steadies me. The girl I used to be when I walked in here would’ve bristled at the authority, found a dozen ways to claw free of the implication.

But that version of me never felt this quiet conviction, this invisible pull that makes walking away feel like losing something I didn’t know I needed.

So, I nod once, the smallest of acknowledgments, and open the door.

I don't ask for comfort. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. But I walk out wearing his shirt, carrying the weight of something new: not just submission—but the terrifying possibility of trust.

I didn’t just walk into the lion’s den. I handed him the leash. And for the first time in years, I’m not running. I’m choosing to stay.